Even though I grew up with a brother, I mostly lived life like an only child.

And I was always content.

Still am.

But sometimes do feel a certain loneliness.

What’s strange is that I feel it more often now than I used to when I was single.

The longer The Attorney and I have been keeping company1, the more I experience little pangs of loneliness.

I guess the more time we have behind us, the more time I want to have together ahead of us.

We’re having one of our first pleasant summer nights2 here in East Tennessee tonight, after a fairly lengthy hot spell. So, I was out back enjoying some quiet time under the moon and stars.

I was wishing The Attorney was here, too. I’ve always thought of star patterns as being like some sort of jeweled Rorschach Test. Even if you know the constellations, everybody has their own impression of what they are seeing up there. I wanted to share what we each see up in the sky.

But, he was at home. An hour and half away.

So, I couldn’t.

And that made me feel a little lonely.

We’re not so far apart that we don’t see the same sky. So, I could have called him up and we could have shared our star blots over the phone.

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They’re afraid of us serving the country. They’re afraid of us getting married and raising families.

And here in Tennessee, they are afraid of us even being spoken of.

At least State Senator Stacey Campfield is.

The news is a few weeks old now, but the senator recently sponsored his “Don’t Say Gay” bill in the Tennessee state legislature. It will make it illegal for teachers to discuss homosexuals or homosexuality in grades lower than the 9th.

He feels that parents should decide within the home at what point such discussions should take place.

Now, I would probably agree that the nuts and bolts of sex, gay or straight, doesn’t need to be taught to the very young (although I think these days middle schoolers should be armed with some knowledge of mechanics). But, his bill isn’t about sex ed.

Because he thinks it’s okay to discuss heterosexual relationships. In fact, the bill expressly states that only heterosexuality can legally be discussed.

This means a teacher could not discuss kids who have same sex parents or even really acknowledges that we gay folks even exist.

What is Stacey Campfield so afraid of?

Is he afraid that if people know that there are gay folks out there, they might start wondering about about a senator in his forties who’s never been married and has a traditionally female name?

I’m not suggesting anything about Stacey’s private life1 but he has been bizarrely obsessed with keeping homosexuality, itself, hush-hush.

He pushed the same bill unsuccessfully for four years while he was in the house2. But now he seems to be gaining some steam because it recently passed in the Senate. Hopefully it won’t get past the House.

But, in Tennessee, you never know.

Back in the 1920′s, the state made headlines when a teacher stood trial for teaching evolution.3